One
of the features of the provisional results of Census
2011 that has already captured a lot of media attention
is the apparent increase in urbanisation. At one level,
this may not seem to be all that significant, with
urban residents going from 27.81 per cent of total
population in 2001 to 31.16 per cent in 2011, or an
increase of only 3.35 percentage points over a decade.
This is not really a very major shift, and certainly
a rate of urbanisation of less than one-third of the
population is significantly less than in many other
developing countries, even those at similar levels
of per capita income.
Nevertheless, it has created some excitement, because
for the first time since Independence, the decadal
increase in the size of the urban population (by 90.99
million people over 2001-11) was greater than that
of the rural population (90.47 million). It is not
only in the smaller states that urbanisation appears
to be proceeding apace. In some larger states like
Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the proportion of urban to
total population is already approaching nearly half,
while Maharashtra and Gujarat are not too far behind.
This finding has quickly generated reactions in the
policy making community. The Planning Commission has
already noted that ''addressing the problems posed
by the urban transformation that is likely to occur''
is among the four key challenges posed for the next
Five Year Plan. (The others are described as those
of managing energy and water and of protecting the
environment.) Other commentators have talked about
the need to put much greater emphasis on urban infrastructure
creation and management, and on the need to ensure
that the growing cities are ''livable''.
The implicit assumption in much of the discussion
seems to be that the expansion of urban population
is occurring largely in the bigger towns and cities,
as well as the apparently unstoppable metros. But
is this supported by the evidence?
Urban population increase reflects the outcome of
three separate forces: the natural increase in population
within the urban areas; the migration of rural dwellers
to urban areas; and the reclassification of settlements
from rural to urban. All three have been at work over
the past decade. While we still do not have access
to the detailed Census data that would allow for the
disaggregation, we do know that the last factor is
likely to have played a major role, simply because
there has been a significant, even remarkable increase
in the number of urban conurbations in the latest
Census. The number of urban settlements has increased
from 5161 in 2001 to 7935 in 2011, an increase of
54% that dwarfs the 32% growth in urban population.
The 2011 Census classifies an area as urban if it
fulfils any one of two conditions. Firstly, any area
that comes under a corporation, municipality or town
panchayat is automatically classified as urban, and
is defined as a ''statutory town''. Secondly, a location
is considered to be urban if it contains a population
of 5,000 or above, has a density of at least 400 persons
per square km and 75 per cent of the male work force
employed in non-agricultural occupations. It is then
defined as a ''Census town''.
Table
1: Urban Settlements in 2011 |
|
Per
cent urban population
in 2011
|
Total
urban settlements
in 2011
|
Increase
in number since 2001 |
Statutory
towns |
Census
towns |
Total |
|
India |
31.16 |
|
242 |
2532 |
2774 |
|
Jammu
&
Kashmir |
27.21 |
|
0 |
2 |
2 |
|
Punjab |
37.49 |
|
4 |
56 |
60 |
|
Uttarakhand |
30.55 |
|
0 |
30 |
30 |
|
Haryana |
34.79 |
|
-4 |
52 |
48 |
|
Rajasthan |
24.89 |
|
1 |
74 |
75 |
|
Uttar
Pradesh |
22.28 |
|
10 |
201 |
211 |
|
Bihar |
11.3 |
|
14 |
55 |
69 |
|
Assam |
14.08 |
|
8 |
81 |
89 |
|
West
Bengal |
31.89 |
|
6 |
528 |
534 |
|
Jharkhand |
24.05 |
|
-4 |
80 |
76 |
|
Orissa |
16.68 |
|
0 |
85 |
85 |
|
Chhattisgarh |
23.24 |
|
93 |
-8 |
85 |
|
Madhya
Pradesh |
27.63 |
|
25 |
57 |
82 |
|
Gujarat |
42.58 |
|
27 |
79 |
106 |
|
Maharashtra |
45.23 |
|
5 |
152 |
157 |
|
Andhra
Pradesh |
33.49 |
|
8 |
135 |
143 |
|
Karnataka |
38.57 |
|
-6 |
83 |
77 |
|
Goa |
62.17 |
|
0 |
26 |
26 |
|
Kerala |
47.72 |
|
-1 |
362 |
361 |
|
Tamil
Nadu |
48.45 |
|
0 |
265 |
265 |
Table
1 >> Click
to Enlarge
As the table shows, one of the significant processes
that has been at work in India over the past decade
is the very significant increase in ''Census towns''
– that is, those places that are not recognised in
a statutory sense as urban areas but fulfil the criteria
laid down by the Census. These account for more than
90 per cent of the increase in the total number of
urban settlements. In a few states (such as Karnataka,
Haryana and Jharkhand) the number of statutory towns
has actually fallen, while the number of Census town
has increased very sharply. Overall all, the number
of Census towns has increased by more than 180 per
cent, while there has been more than threefold increase
in their numbers in Bihar, Kerala, Punjab and Uttar
Pradesh.
It is also likely that a very significant part of
the ''urbanisation'' that is being talked about is
actually a reflection of this reclassification of
settlements, rather than of rural-urban migration
per se. This will only be clear when further Census
2011 results are provided, but it is obvious that
such a large increase in the number of Census towns
must have had a counterpart in the number of people
defined as living in urban areas.
This brings into play a set of entirely new issues
around the phenomenon of urbanisation, and it is surprising
that these have not yet come up in any significant
way in the policy discussion. How exactly do we define
''urban''? When villages grow in size and start including
a greater proportion of work force engaged in non-agricultural
activities, they will increasingly be considered as
''urban'' in this sense, but they will be outside
of the administrative and policy framework that is
designed to deal with urban areas. And this leads
to a huge range of new questions and problems.
In the absence of the institutional framework of a
municipality, how are the standard problems relating
to urban infrastructure, utilities like electricity
and water, sanitation and the provision of other basic
services to be dealt with? To what extent has the
planning process (and policy making generally) incorporated
the needs and requirements of these areas? Indeed,
are there any plans at all for such settlements, including
the standard plans relating to land use, provision
of schools, health care centres, community services
and the like? What about spatial provisions like sufficient
open spaces, public parks and playgrounds, and avoiding
congestion?
It could well be that currently these ''Census towns''
are simply off the radar of most policy makers and
implementers, because they do not fall into the statutory
definition of urban and are still included in ''rural''
areas for administrative purposes. Yet there are 3,894
such towns according to Census 2011, and they are
bound to account for a significant (and possibly growing)
part of the urban population as described in the Census.
Ignoring the specific needs of these areas and their
residents is likely to create many problems in the
future.
So this clearly amounts to another major challenge
posed by ''urbanisation'', but one that has still
barely been recognised in official circles.
It is worth adding to this another feature that has
emerged from the other important official dataset
that has just been released – the employment and unemployment
data of the National Sample Survey round of 2009-10.
That reveals that rates of employment generation have
slowed down dramatically in both rural and urban areas
(though it is not clear whether they have included
only statutory urban areas in their definition).
So we have a potentially deadly combination: growing
population in small urban areas, with poor or possibly
non-existent facilities, no urban planning to speak
of to ensure liveable conditions, and inadequate employment
generation especially for the increasing numbers of
young people that are part of the demographic bulge.
The potential for social tensions and conflict as
well as instability of various sorts, hardly needs
to be reiterated given our unfortunate history with
such issues.
In this context, it is surprising that the Planning
Commission did not list adequate good quality employment
generation as a major challenge for the coming Plan
period. Ignoring this very formidable challenge is
perilous, because the adverse implications are not
long term or even medium term: they are likely to
come and bite us only too soon.
* The article was originally published
in the Frontline Volume 28 - Issue 17, August 13-26,
2011.
